Mercury's Turn

   As the Pleiades star cluster rides off into the spring sunset it took the time to pose with the inner most planet Mercury.

Venus and the Pleiades 4/11/15

  Saturday night and for the next few nights, Venus (the brightest planet) is passing a couple of degrees from  the Pleiades star cluster.  I drove out to the Lake Michigan shore and took a few photos yesterday.   In a couple of photos a satellite was clearly visible.  I was able to ID it with Starry Night computer software.

  Below is a link to more info about the Flock 1B satellite

Satellite info

Close up of Venus and star cluster

Nova in Sagittarius 3/29/15

  A couple of weeks ago a nova was discovered in the constellation Sagittarius.  Yesterday I tried to look for it from my house but found that the trees in my neighborhood blocked my view of that part of the sky.  Too bad because yesterday the sky was much more transparent than today.  

   I woke before dawn this morning and saw that it was somewhat clear out, so I packed my camera and headed for a unobstructed southeast horizon,   

  Not the most impressive photos but it's only the second nova I've ever photographed.  For more information here is a link to Bob King's astronomy blog. astrobob - Nova in Sagittarius

Northern Lights 3/17/2015 (with video)

    For the first time in about ten years I was able to observe and photograph a display of the Northern Lights.  A Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun on March 15 sent a shower of charged particles that interacted with Earth's magnetic field.  The ejected matter actually arrived early in the predawn (EDT) hours of March 17.   During the daylight hours for the eastern US the intensity of the interaction increased dramatically,  giving skywatchers in the eastern hemisphere a vivid display.
    Just before the onset of dusk for my location there was a slight drop off in the Auroral activity.  Usually this signifies a trend downward and the end of the geomagnetic storm.  But as the sky started to darken a quick check of spaceweather.com  showed that the fall off was just temporary and the activity re-intensified.

  Before astronomical twilight had begun the display was detected by my camera, as I set up on the roadside leading to Ludington State Park.

Green glow visible in twilight

   Who knew that a road that leads nowhere but park, would suddenly become the busiest road in Mason County.

Long exposure of passing car

  To avoid headlights washing out my photos I climbed over the dunes and reset up the camera

   It wasn't the best display I've ever seen but I had my best camera I'd ever photographed the aurora with.

  I strung together about 200 still photos and made a video that I put on youtube.  Here is the link.
Video of Northern Lights

Comet 2014 Q2 1/13/2015

  Comet Lovejoy 2014 Q2 made for a nice target on a 5 degree evening on Tuesday.  

  In the photo the tail is faintly visible to the left of the head of the comet.

Comet 2014 Q2 1/12/2015

In August 2014,Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy, discovered his fifth comet.  Initially it was expected to reach only magnitude 7 (2.5x dimmer than the naked eye can detect), but it has peaked at magnitude 4 and can be detected with the naked eye from a dark site. The exponential nature of the astronomical brightness scale, means that a 3 magnitude increase is 2.5 x 2.5 x 2.5 = 15 times brighter. Photos reveal the blue-green color of the comet.

Green blob left of the tree

  This photo shows  two galaxies the Andromeda Galaxy on the right at a distance of 2 million lightyears and the Triangulum Galaxy faintly visible on the left.

Prismatic Sun 10/27/2014

Last week despite driving 80 miles to the east, trying to outrun an encroaching cloud-bank, I still missed out on the sunset partial eclipse.  Although the main event was obscured, my practice shots taken the day before yielded evidence of an interesting atmospheric sunset phenomenon. 
  As the sun gets lower in the sky it shines through denser layers of atmosphere.  The thicker atmosphere's refractive properties have a prismatic effect on the Sun, allowing its image to be separated into its component colors.  Meaning the sun's red wavelengths set first and the blue-green set last.  The first image shows the red breaking away at the bottom.

   Later as the solar disk was slipping below the horizon the green wavelengths of light were lingering above the Sun.

  

   Over the past week a massive sunspot complex, the size of Jupiter has been making its way across the face of the Sun.  Today I noticed that the sunspots could be seen through thickening clouds and was able to get some photos with the clouds acting as a solar filter.